Making a Case for Poetry in Action-Oriented Foreign Language Courses

The present article describes a small-scale poetry project intended to foster culturally responsive learning in the C1-level university language course. The instructor of this course had the opportunity to invite an aspiring poet, Ivan Bio from Sierra Leone, to a reading of three of his poems to be performed during one of the sessions. Designed as an extension activity for one of the course units, the project required students to complete a set of tasks to prepare for the poetry reading as well as engage in follow-up activities to reflect on the experience. By describing and analyzing the implementation of this reading session, the authors aim to explore the potential benefits of poetic discourse for language courses based on action-oriented, learner-centered approaches. Against the background of the CEFR descriptors relating to the reception of creative/literary language and the mediation of texts, the authors intend to show that the interpretation and analysis of poetic texts can help students not only to increase their sensitivity to and awareness of the ambivalence of language, but also to in turn expand their communicative language competences, most notably their mediation skills. To achieve these goals, students were asked not only to analyze and explain the poems to their peers, but also to formulate personal responses to the texts. A striking observation was that the context of remote learning where students communicated in a Zoom meeting did not seem to interfere with their willingness and ability to express their attitudes and even their emotions. This made the meeting an emotionally profound experience for everybody involved, and the authors will argue that not only the range but also the intensity of the language learning experience can be greatly enhanced by integrating poetry in the foreign language classroom. The article intends to demonstrate that the CEFR with its Companion Volume (CEFR/CV) and their operationalization in action-oriented approaches form a perfect basis for expanding learners’ language competences through poetry.